Taylor Swift - RED - October 22

know what you're saying but for someone with the dn "Driver 8"...

I dig this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiXmnGWw2EU&feature=youtu.be

yeah really good performance

Nice Jody Rosen profile:

http://www.vulture.com/2013/11/taylor-swift-reigning-queen-of-pop.html

These numbers are especially improbable when you consider the music, and the musician, behind them. Swift is an oddball. There is no real historical precedent for her. Her path to stardom has defied the established patterns; she falls between genres, eras, demographics, paradigms, trends. She is a Pennsylvania Yankee turned teen-pop country singer, a Nashville star who crossed over to Top 40, a confessional singer-songwriter who masquerades as a global pop diva. Her music mashes up the quirkily homespun and the gleaming pop-industrial, Etsy and Amazon, in a way we’ve never quite heard before.

lmao is that para supposed to make me wanna click that

feel like the piece is decently-written but a redux of everything that's been written which i guess is what it's meant to be. worth it for t-swift coining "the pageantry of trying to seem like nothing affects you" (telling she gets the best line!)

like, perhaps, a contest of who can act like they care less?

i think that's what the ilx experiment is all about

h8 to be pedantic about one sentence but it was not the "country establishment" that sent "we are never ever getting back together" to #1 on the country charts... and also i am v skeptical of the claim that "i knew you were trouble" received even one spin on country radio. otherwise an interesting read.

feel like the piece is decently-written but a redux of everything that's been written which i guess is what it's meant to be.

I think his observations of the female-centricness of it all gets at some interesting things. I'm sure there's more to say along those lines, but maybe not by a male critic.

h8 to be pedantic about one sentence but it was not the "country establishment" that sent "we are never ever getting back together" to #1 on the country charts... and also i am v skeptical of the claim that "i knew you were trouble" received even one spin on country radio. otherwise an interesting read.

― dyl, Tuesday, November 19, 2013 11:09 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i sure as shit never heard it once on any of the country stations here. Begin Again was the main country radio single

"Begin Again" hit #10 on country radio; "Red" hit #2. "Red" was also the song she performed on the CMAs last week, in a stripped-down country/bluegrass arrangement. However, I think "Stay Stay Stay" could have been a huge country radio hit for her if it had just been released to country radio as a single. Perhaps her management just doesn't care about that anymore, but "Stay Stay Stay" is the most overtly country track on the album, to my ears anyway. Certainly could have fit right in on Fearless.

"red" hit #2 on the revamped overall country chart, which incorporates all-format radio data and digital sales since about a year ago. it's still rising on country radio, where it's currently at its peak of #10. (by "hit #2," i really mean that it debuted there behind "we are never ever getting back together" on the very first week that the methodology change was implemented.)

Thanks for the clarification. Regardless, I still think that failing to promote "Stay Stay Stay" to country radio was a missed opportunity to shore up her support in the genre. Maybe they will do that after "Red" finishes its run, as there's still a year to go until the next album. I would.

red is totally packed with single contenders, honestly

http://actuallygrimes.tumblr.com/post/67634577309/holy-dear-god-nightcore-remix-of-i-knew-you-were

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxTcRhIoEAk

lorde was at her birthday party

there's evidence on instagram: http://instagram.com/taylorswift

ha, I saw that. She was peering out from the back and I was like, "is that...Lorde?"

Must be pretty cool to break into the music biz and then be able to eat birthday cake with (presumably?) someone you used to only hear on the radio back when you were "normal".

has this been linked? http://rookiemag.tumblr.com/post/56131794522/hundredmilesperhour-tavi-gevinson-notes-on

that's amazing <3

as tay quoted neruda in her red liner notes "love is so short, forgetting is so long"

ofc she'd quote this! perfectly encapsulates her m.o.

"CAPTURE IT. REMEMBER IT."

i'm too ridiculously excited for her next album

hurry up and dominate my autumn again already

so good live tonight <33333

'60s girl group version of "you belong with me" <3

pausing and holding "all too well" before the last verse <3

gigantically high-concept setpieces for 90% of the songs <3

everything about "treacherous" <3

Yeah i was so pleased she did "treacherous" live this tour.

We didn't get a girl group "You Belong With Me" though ;_;

Guess "Holy Ground" is the next single.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdiA4HD_BOA

'60s girl group version of "you belong with me" <3

WHHAAAAAAA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmTaKM03zcY

nice!

http://i.imgur.com/6fW3zRb.png

H/t Grimes, & OTM

Xpost: kinda disappointed there's no drop.

I can't decide whether this is her best or Speak Now. Someone help.

it's this

fearless = red > speak now > s/t

tho i admit most of the reason for my preference for fearless is sentimentality.

literally every time she's released a new album my initial response has been "no way is this as good as her previous album(s)" and then a few months down the line i do an about turn and think it's her best to date. i think that's because i get so attached to each album that when she switches things up it takes me some time to get my head around the direction she's taking and really appreciate and love it. and then it makes the earlier albums sound meagre by comparison.

speak now > red > fearless > s/t

though I've boiled the s/t down to a core that I couldn't live without

Speak Now's peaks are higher but Red is more consistent throughout.

I don't know how I feel about her spending more studio time with Max Martin. Inevitable, I suppose. http://instagram.com/p/kcye69DvMH/

I think WANEGBT and IKYWT really good but I can feel she can do a bit better. 22 however, is my jam.
The output could be monumental and it will always be better than the duets off her last album.

Fearless for me, absolutely. One of my favorite albums. It's simply that it hits me emotionally, every line and every piece of melody. I think Fearless is my favorite TS track as well.

TS: On Red I did three songs with Max Martin and Shellback- “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “I Knew You Were Trouble,” and “22.” I think we’ll be doing a lot more than three songs together on the next album. (Laughs)

Not mad, considering WANEGBT/Trouble/22 are all 10/10 flawless and life-affirming. Max/Shellback is a much stronger and more consistent team than the Max/Luke/Cirkut team they're often conflated with (who do most of Katy Perry's productions)

She's also been working with Ryan Tedder, who is far more hit and mess. His melodies can be so trite & grating. LP5 definitely looking like it's gonna push Taylor even further into the pop world!

i've been proselytising quite a bit recently and after me giving a friend a copy of red (she has it on repeat all the time now :D) her first response coming back to me was "she sounds quite country doesn't she?". i hadn't realised that for a lot of ppl, particularly outside the u.s., their awareness of taylor has been mostly informed by those three big pop singles. and if she wants that big international success (and why not? she's in her prime) continuing doing pop with max martin makes the most sense.

Interesting to see what she'll do next because she's clearly in a very delicate position re: the space she occupies between pop and country and who knows how far the country "establishment" will follow her but then again, look at someone like Shania, who IMO went much more pop than even where Taylor is right now and as soon as Shania puts out a new album, country radio will probably lap it up.

country radio's already significantly cooled on her ("begin again" and "red" both underperformed there relative to her old stuff iirc), and i don't think she can bothered to pander to them that much anymore (or at least that's how it appeared during the album campaign - her team could have at least tried sending "stay stay stay" or an edit of "all too well" to country radio). i think unlike shania she probably feels confident enough in her songwriting chops that she can return to country whenever she wants to in the future and find success. but the country and joni-esque stuff that some of her fanbase are calling out for can wait - it's more challenging and fun for her right now in her mid-20s to try and become the biggest pop star in the world.

It seemed to me that the songwriterly parts of Red largely just continued the trend of the same parts of Speak Now, so there's no reason to think that the sequel to Red wouldn't continue in the same vein.

lol, some about-turns happening itt, some people pretending like they were never all "oh, red's her worst album, it's not all that"

literally every time she's released a new album my initial response has been "no way is this as good as her previous album(s)" and then a few months down the line i do an about turn and think it's her best to date. i think that's because i get so attached to each album that when she switches things up it takes me some time to get my head around the direction she's taking and really appreciate and love it. and then it makes the earlier albums sound meagre by comparison.

yeah this really rings true - i'm not sure that each new TS album makes the others seem worse though, so much as each new one overlays the previous one in a weird way, and firmly consigns it to The Past, someone she used to be, is not any more, will never be again. every new album is a definitive break from a past self. that's such a rare thing to come across - i get something similar with the new beyoncé album, and it's her fifth! - and especially for an artist who often gets accused of peddling the same lines over and over again.

Very OTM

she went to a fan's bridal shower.

speak now > red > fearless > s/t

though I've boiled the s/t down to a core that I couldn't live without

― Euler, Friday, 14 February 2014 20:51

While I agree with Lex that each album shows growth and a break from "The Past," I disagree with the implicit conclusion that maturation --> quality. The first two records exude charm for their simplicity, naivety, earnestness, and authenticity. These attitudes define these records for me and SUPPORT their imperfection (the s/t, for sure). The last two records have certainly charted an adroit pivot toward pop radio and stardom, accompanied by better songwriting and production, overall; and while I've enjoyed them both, over time, I've lost a sense of belief that was essential to enjoying those first two albums. These days, I find her more interesting as a person than anything else.

Fearless > s/t = Red > Speak Now

love that t-swizzle's new publicist is called tree paine